3 AM
by Flywheel Shyster and Flywheel
Summary: In the darker hours of the morning, Eddy tries to back up his evening until the point where it all went wrong.


_Yo._

 _This is a thing I started to write for Halloween 2016 but never finished, doubtful it ever will be. I hope somebody finds a moment's entertainment in what it is and could've been._

 _Peace._

* * *

Loud panting echoed throughout the dark hallway. He had to go on, had to keep running; 'safety' was a word that didn't exist that night, yet he stood there, crouched down next to a side table to catch his breath. The countless layers of dust that had been accumulating for years burdened the air and he knew that he couldn't go on for much longer. His head was pounding relentlessly, the wound in his arm stung sharply every time he moved and his lungs were burning furiously in his chest. But he couldn't give up.

' _Don't think about it, just keep moving forward. Keep moving forward. Keep... Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!_ ' Eddy restrained himself from flipping the table over in rage and pressed the back of his blood stained hand against his eyes instead. A shaky breath escaped him as he attempted to regain some sort of calm. Irrationality was what _he_ would be expecting, it would be what _he_ would continue to act upon. There had to be some way to outsmart him, to put a stop to it all, but he always seemed to be one step ahead of every one of their actions. They were trapped inside a nightmare of his orchestration and there was no way for Eddy to wake up. He'd tried.

He didn't know where in the house he was, he had no idea how many were left and he had no idea what time it was. All he knew was that it was starting to run out.

With a heavy groan, he clamored to his feet and steadied himself when a bout of dizziness washed over him. His hand pressed against the deep crimson rag tied around the wound again and he winced; he really should've done something about the blood loss earlier. Nevertheless, it was time to get moving again. There was no telling if something as simple as a creaking of floorboards was the general state of the house or their host coming to claim yet another one of them.

' _Run._ ' Eddy followed his own mental command and set off in a jog. It all became simpler to deal with, he found, if he detached himself physically and gave instructions to himself of what to do. Like a video game. Except all too real.

He soon came upon a crossroad dimly illuminated by a lit candle, one of many tonight. Left or right? The tears in the wallpaper, man-made opposed to those naturally occurring over time, seemed familiar. Hadn't he already been there? Which way did he go then? He looked both ways and threw a quick glance over his shoulder. Darkness in every direction. Did it even matter which way he went? It felt like he had been all over the house at least twice over by now without much success in finding a way out, if there even was one.

' _Keep trying._ ' There wasn't much else to do; submit or survive. ' _Survive._ ' It had essentially been his mantra through this whole ordeal. ' _Survive._ ' As if he constantly needed to remind himself of the word's grave importance. ' _Survive._ ' As if he would keel over and die if he stopped. ' _Survive._ ' He most likely would. ' _Right._ '

He continued to the right, leaving the small, lit space behind him and jogged further into the darkness. The faint dampness in the air sparked a sense of recognition; he was sure he'd been here before. He slowed down to normal walking pace. Even if he had come across this hallway earlier, there were no guarantees that there wouldn't have been surprises rigged for him since then. He was just thankful that his eyes managed to readjust to the lack of light faster and faster. Treading carefully, he slid his hands along the walls to check for something unusual; indentations, foreign matter or... Blood. A lot of it. Splattered violently across the wall. A grim sigh almost escaped him. One more step and he would step in a puddle of it. He turned around and cursed silently, ahead lied nothing new. He'd managed to go in a giant circle for the last five minutes and ended up where he'd run from; the kitchen.

 **3:31**

Eddy set his foot down in something unknown and he quickly jumped back, bracing himself for any sign of unwanted company; a floorboard creak, the rustle of a shirt or a breath. A minute passed before he could deem it safe to allow himself to investigate the unidentified substance. Crouching down with his back to the wall, he fumbled around the floor with two fingers until he found what he was looking for. Blood. He knew it well enough by now. A puddle of it, smaller than a manhole cover. Placing a hand against the wall to support, he found that it too was covered in it. He quickly pushed himself to his feet and reached out. Small droplets, a spray of it decorating the wallpaper.

' _Shit._ ' This was new. Not only was the blood fresh, he could swear that he hadn't been here before. Yet another one was close. Taking a careful step over the small formation of liquid, he wiped his hands on his already soiled jeans and continued. Fumbling forwards into the unknown, he came upon a turn to the right and saw something that filled him with hopelessness. The bright light from a crack in a door flooded out into the dark hallway, revealing a thin smear of crimson life force on the floor, leading inside. How many was that then?

' _Don't think, just do it._ ' He was right; the few moments beforehand were more horrifying than the actual moment itself. The plentitude of gruesome possibilities would torment him undoubtedly, but so would the image he would find should he open the door. ' _Do. It. Get it over with._ ' With a heavy heart, Eddy took a few careful steps, glancing back to see if he was being followed, and paused when he reached the door. The two small labels that sat plastered over the doorknob could clearly be read in the small light that seeped through and he snarled at the casual tone they held.

" **Welcome to the kitchen.** " and " **Please, help yourself.** ". So he did.

The door swung open with relative ease. He took a moment to assess the direct surroundings of the door opening before taking a step inside, following the trail of blood.

The room in itself was nothing special. On a basic level, it was similar to his own kitchen, albeit rundown with a combination of negligence and time. The same cupboards, almost the same refrigerator, kitchen island. Deplorable color scheme to it all. Of course, none of this really interested him; it merely offered a much needed distraction from the obvious centerpiece of the room.

There was a dining table positioned across the room, casting long shadows in the light of the dozens of lit candles shaped into a walkway along the floor. With the heavy weight on his shoulders only increasing, he approached the scene.

He paid a lot more attention to the pedantic details than the intended target of attention. The elegant candlesticks that stood placed in perfect symmetry on each side of a withering floral arrangement. How the seat closest to him had been properly set, no doubt for him. The used scalpel that rested languidly next to the fork on the side of the plate opposite.

' _So that's where that went._ ' Upon the plate rested a small lump of wrinkled mass which had been carefully carved and two blood soaked strips that resembled rubber bands. The whole display would almost have been the perfect dinner scene for his twisted games had it not been for her and her clothes' sullied state as well as the smudged flecks of blood on the otherwise pristine tablecloth. It looked like someone had tried to wipe it off in a hurry.

As had been praxis so far, he looked her over once. The detachment helped, he wasn't sure he would be able to live with it otherwise. It was different this time though; the whole procedure seemed to have sped up halfway in, like something had interrupted him. The needle still attached to the thread dangled from the corner of her mouth, destined and crafted to never open again, and the state of gore her throat was in could only be described as abysmal. This was far from the surgical precision Eddy had witnessed previously, no; this was sloppy. Like whatever it was that lay blood soaked upon the plate, though he had a faint clue of what it could be, had been ripped out of her throat in haste to complete this perverted, ironic metaphor.

The young man turned around and let his shoulders slump. Whatever he was feeling could wait; he had to move on or he would be next. With a final look around to see if he had missed a vital detail, he walked back to the door, peered both ways into the hallway cautiously and set off to the left in a hurry, leaving Sarah alone at the table where her last supper was served without guaranteed dinner conversation.

Eddy pressed himself up against the wall best he could as he moved. Having passed the crossroad again and gone the opposite way, he knew that he would be moving back into already chartered territory. Maybe that was good though; an erratic pattern in movement would be more difficult to track, right? Although that hadn't helped anyone else so far. Nothing had.

An involuntary hiss was let out when a sudden painful pang radiated from his wound. Peeling his hand off the improvised bandage, he tried to assess the severity of his injury but it was impossible in the dimly lit space. Something had to be done though and soon, his chances of survival would otherwise diminish even further.

Mentally, he tried to retrace his steps through this horrible journey, leaving out the more horrific details, but found it almost impossible. His whole image of the night was broken, fragments of running, opening doors and fighting for his life were the only things that formed some part of the picture, but the majority was missing. He took a deep breath, then another, to calm himself down in order to concentrate. Before the kitchen, he had walked down this hall, in the opposite direction he was currently walking, coming from...

He trudged on. Even if he was headed back to another grizzly scene, there might have been some clue there he could have missed and even if there had been, their host had yet to revisit one of his gruesome displays so it could be considered a temporary safe zone. He knew he was close when he saw the weak light shine down from above. Clenching his teeth as hard as he could to brace himself, he pulled himself up onto the ladder hanging down from the ceiling, white hot pain shooting out from his wound as he supported his whole body weight with his arms. Moaning silently, he waited for the worst agony to reside until he began his ascent, back into the library.


End file.
